Confrontation
by TheElsianPrincess
Summary: **IGNITE ME SPOILERS** The war is over. Rebuilding has begun. Juliette and Warner are destroying the compounds together in Sector 45, when Juliette stumbles across some unwanted visitors. Her terror reignites. Memories return. But this time, she's stronger. This time, she will fight back against the two people who should have loved her, but abhorred and abused her instead.


_**Hi guys! So, I've decided to update Everything and Nothing once a week, on Fridays. That's really the only time when I have time to write (except now, obviously, but this has been tugging at my mind for awhile).**_

_**This is Juliette stumbling across her parents again. Inspired by Tahereh Mafi's Ignite Me.**_

_**IGNITE ME SPOILERS.**_

* * *

Desolation.

All I see is desolation, and I can't help but wonder if we did the right thing, if we made the right choices…

If we killed the right people.

But then I see Warner next to me, his green eyes cool and observant, and I know we did it. We're not finished yet…but we soon will be.

Warner, ironically, reminds me of what's good in this world. When I look at him, and then I look at the mess of concrete, the piles of stinking, rotting bodies, and the funeral pyres, with their columns of smoke twisting and climbing higher higher higher into the sky, I'm able to look past the wreckage and see the beauty. I can see the children dancing in the streets, laughing, because even they know that something new has begun. The danger has not yet passed, but hope is so close it's tangible. They can taste it on their tongues when they breathe in the smoke filled air. They can catch it and let it run through their fingers when they jump into the nearby streams that have been forbidden territory for so long.

"Two more houses." Warner drops a pile of shattered concrete at my feet and dusts his hands off. He's wearing sweats—something he's been doing more, now that he's helping the civilians tear down the compounds. The thought of Warner in sweats _in public _made me laugh at first, but now I can't help but think how wonderful of an idea it is. He's working. He's doing the heavy lifting with his people.

And they love him.

"I'll take one," I say, my eyes trained on the tiny, fluttering movement at the base of his throat, where he swallows a little. "You take the other."

Warner nods. "Do you want a gun, love?"

I shake my head, smiling at him. "No. I have all the weapons I need." I flex my fingers.

He grins. "Indeed, you do." He wipes his hands on his sweatpants. He's wearing too much clothing.

Way too much clothing.

His fingers tug my chin up so my gaze locks with his, and he smirks a little. "Not in public, love," he whispers. "Not here, where everyone can see."

I can feel myself flush and I pull away from him. He laughs a little. "You'll call if you need help…"

It isn't a question, but I answer it anyway, with a slight nod of my head. "Of course."

* * *

This house is still inhabited.

That's odd.

We told the civilians to clear out three weeks ago…to move into the base…temporarily, of course, but it provides them the protection they need, the supplies, everything…I wasn't aware someone had managed to escape our thorough checks.

"Hello?" I call, picking my way over the scattered debris. The wind blows ash through the house, and I'm tempted to just demolish it with my bare hands, but if someone really is still living here, if someone really is refusing to leave, I can't do that without putting their lives at risk. "Is someone there?"

I hear a rustle from the room on my right, and I take a step into the room. A small fire flickers at the center of the room, lighting the bleak space and warming it, the smoke drifting out the sole window on the right. A couple huddles near the fire, wrapped in blankets. When they see me, they gasp, and I'm wondering why, I'm wondering if they've seen me kill someone, if they've seen me use my power, why they gasp, until I see their faces.

I see their faces.

I recognize their faces.

I p

l

u

m

m

e

t

into a dark **abyss** of horror and pain.

* * *

"Mom…Dad…" I whisper, taking a step back, my heart pounding furiously so furiously, I'm afraid it will grow wings and leap out of my chest and then drop to the ground an like a fragile piece of red glass. Fear floods through my veins like quick moving mud, congealing and sticking, fogging my mind. Memories invade my brain, and I see myself cowering in the corner behind a book while my mother screams at me and calls me monster, while my father gazes at me with obvious disgust.

"J-Juliette…" my mother whispers, her fear undisguised.

My own terror transforms into anger into loathing into rage into hate and I feel as if I might explode. "_You_," I say, unable to keep the sneer out of my voice. "You told me I was a _monster! _You taught me to think that way, to see myself that way, you…you—"

"You _are _a monster," my mother says. It's a slap in the face. I know I'm not. I have people who love me, people who care, people who tell me I'm just as human as the next person, but it still stings. "What kind of _normal human being _kills people with her touch?"

"Juliette? Are you okay?" It's Warner. He's behind me, and he's coming in with a gun and I'm tempted, _so tempted _to take it from him and point it at my parents' heads.

But that _would _make me a monster.

So instead, I answer him, choking on my words. "I'm…alive."

I hear him burst into the room, I hear him click the safety off his gun, I hear him stop in confusion. "Juliette…love…?"

I turn to him and force a smile I don't feel, that I know he sees through. I grit my teeth. "Aaron…meet my parents."

* * *

Warner explodes with rage. He has the gun pointed at them in less than a second, and they cower into each other. "So you're the people responsible for abusing my girlfriend as a child." Again, it's not a question. It never is with Warner. It's a statement. You either accept it, or you reject it.

My parents choose the wrong option.

"We did no such thing," my father protests angrily. "She was a public menace. We protected her."

Warner laughs. "You have no idea who your daughter is. You have _no idea._"

"Of course we do," my mother says, her voice shaking. "Of course we do, she's…she's our daughter. We raised her."

"You have no idea who I am, or who I was," I say, stepping up next to Warner and wrapping my fingers around his wrists, gently lowering his arms. Shooting my parents won't solve anything.

Their eyes widen as they watch me touch Warner's bare skin, surprised that he isn't screaming in agony. Without warning, I dart over to them and grab one of each of their wrists, hauling them up, gripping hard enough to cause them pain, but not hard enough to shatter their bones.

They both scream and start struggling.

"_Shut up!_" I yell angrily. "_Shut the hell up."_

They're quiet, and I loosen my grip so that they can't escape, but also so they can't feel the pain. Oh, the terror in their eyes.

How odd it must be. To be on the receiving end.

I know all too well.

"What do you feel?" I growl.

"N-nothing," my father says, looking down at me in surprise.

"Exactly." I shove them away from me and they stumble back, nearly running into the wall. "You feel _nothing. _Do you want to know why? It's because I can _turn my power off. _Yes. I have power. I have immense volumes of it, running through my veins, and I now have the power to control it. I can touch people without hurting them. I can also touch people and kill them at will. I can crush your bones to dust with the simple squeeze of my hand, but I can also control my strength. I could have learned this a long time ago…so long ago…if you'd been actual, real, loving parents, you would have helped me learn this. You did nothing but hinder me. _You _killed that little boy at the grocery store because _you _refused to help me. _You _put me in that asylum for 264 days, and I could have broken out if I'd known my own strength, I could have demolished that building to mere dust with my bare hands, but I'd been beaten into terror and submission. I thought I was a monster. I _wanted to die _every day I was in there. I wondered if I _was _dead. What was the difference? I was going on in endless, miserable existence. I was a coward, and you contributed to that. Then something happened. Someone saw something in me. Aaron…" I gesture to Warner, next to me, whose gun is slowly inching back up. "Aaron took me out. He trained me. He taught me to feel again. He told me I was powerful, and beautiful, and he showed me the first love I'd ever felt in my entire life. He is why I'm here today. He is why everything around you is being destroyed and a new world will be built up."

I take a deep breath. "And you will not be a part of it."

Warner glances at me sharply, and I shake my head a little bit.

"For your abuse toward your only child," I say, lifting my chin, ignoring the terror in my parents' eyes, "You will spend exactly 264 days in the same cell I spent 264 days in. I will put a wall up in that room so you are in solitary confinement. You will have only the clothes on your back. Then, when your 264 days are up, you will spend seven years being poked and prodded by doctors and scientists, you will be called monsters, and you will have every single torture you put me through done to you. Then, and only then, will you be free."


End file.
